SMC, SDA Missile Warning Sat Ground Systems Won’t ‘Talk’

January 7, 2021

Breaking Defense:

 

The $4.9 billion contract to produce three Next-Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared (Next-Gen OPIR) missile warning satellites seems to fly in the face of loudly-touted Air and Space Force efforts to embrace open standards and cut the number of ground stations, receivers, and antennas, experts said.

Instead, the new contract awarded to Lockheed Martin includes bespoke ground systems and sensor processing software — raising questions in particular about how the data collected eventually will be shared with the Space Development Agency’s ballistic and hypersonic missile-tracking sats.

The production contract, announced yesterday, follows the firm’s 2018 award of $2.9 billion for development of Next-Gen OPIR, which will eventually replace the current Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS) satellites. The new award, managed by the Space Force Space and Missile System Center, covers “all work associated with the manufacturing, assembly, integration, test, and delivery of three Next Generation Geosynchronous (NGG) Earth orbiting space vehicles (SV), and delivery of ground-mission-unique software and ground-sensor processing software”…

 

Click here to read the full article.

Contact

Curtis Stiles - Chief of Staff